Image courtesy of Uneasy Theatre
How to blog lesson 7
Thou shalt be consistent.
If you’re going to do a reviews blog (such as Screen 150, or that popcorn one) then fine, but in order to engage your readers this means you must make the twin sacrifices of 1) not blogging about pretty much anything else and 2) making sure you cover the important bases, i.e. the films people are likely to go and see and will want to know about.
To throw in occasional reviews only when you have something to say is distracting at best and half arsed at worst.
However…
Making Myra
If you need evidence of why so-called fringe theatre needs Arts Council funding you need look no further than, well, any fringe theatre production. I arrived at the pub around five minutes before the performance and consequently was amongst a group of people who entered the room at the back where the play was to take place only to find there were no more seats left. How exactly this can happen when the tickets are sold or reserved in advance still eludes me but, suffice to say this is not the first time I’ve been asked to invade other people’s personal space in the name of getting as many people as possible in, in the (often vain) hope of making ends meet.
As it was I spent much of the performance squinting and waving like a drunk-driven slinky to either side of the mass of heads in front of me in the hope of seeing what was taking place on stage.
Making Myra is an inquisitive look into the life of the country’s most notorious serial killer told through an internal dialogue between Hindley and her dead sister.
Let’s circumvent the inevitable controversy for now and cut to the skinny. Making Myra is a well written, exceptionally acted (especially by Victoria Glover) and well staged production. however, most importantly, it manages to approach the subject matter without portraying Hindley as either a tragic hero or helpless victim whilst at the same time making her more than a mere pantomime villain.
The play focuses on the relationship between Hindley and Brady with the victims absent but hinted at in a move which both avoids cheap shocks and enhances the feeling of claustrophobia which permeates the piece.
but what Making Myra does most is pose questions, often aggressively. Not so much emphasising the ‘why?’ as the ‘why not?’
‘Why not tell someone?’
‘Why not go to the Police?’
And by the end there are no real answers. In part because to do so, to have Hindley explain herself, would be to reduce the entire subject into absolutes and in part because there are no clear answers available perhaps even, as the play hints, to Hindley herself.
Throughout, the play battles with the line between what is known, what is suspected and what can only be guessed at but only at the end does it begin to break the fourth wall and ask possibly the most important question of why, if asked to name one of ‘the moors Murderers’ almost no-one mentions Ian Brady when, to look at the story of Hindley without him would be to miss the point entirely.
Is Making Myra perfect? certainly not. Is it the most well-balanced and realised depiction of Hindley we’re likely to see in our lifetimes? most probably.
Just think what it must have been like sitting at the front.
Glad you liked it Guy.
I hear the seating problem was a bit of a ticket boob due to the fact that such numbers were not expected.
To say that I ‘enjoyed’ the play last night is not really the right term – but it succeeds in making you think, squirm and suffer which I suspect was the principal aim!
The acting was incredible – and from such a young cast. I know I am biased but I thought the script was immense – so brilliantly constructed around the Greek Tragedy theme.
Just a shame it won’t run on for more people to see it. Although, only performing it twice sort of makes it more special for us lucky ones who made the trip.
Oh and thanks for the little Screen150 link!
Dave